“Authority is constructed and contextual.” Thus spake the ACRL Framework for Information Literacy (2016), an assertion that rightly guides information and media literacy instructors as we form and inform students, empowering them to navigate an ecosystem rife with mis- and disinformation. Yet as danah boyd famously argues in her 2018 SXSW EDU keynote, how we teach media literacy can become an “assertion of authority over epistemology” that undermines skills we intend to sharpen by not recognizing and valuing fundamental differences among (...) how individuals within communities make sense of the world(s) we inhabit. Just as authority is constructed and contextual, so also are evaluation and interpretation, sense-making constructs that determine how, why, and where we consume and create information. boyd asks, “How do we teach across epistemologies?” At COIL 2023, Kimberly Cannon and Chris Rosser engage boyd and her critics to describe the mess of epistemology and ethics in media literacy instruction; we then suggest how instructors might leave the mess, offering strategies to promote community and trust deployed in an exemplar gamified media literacy course entitled Eat, Play, Love: Adventures in the Information Ecosystem. Participants will: 1) identify current challenges for media literacy instruction; 2) encounter gameful design as a pedagogical strategy for navigating challenges; and 3) be challenged to attend to how we think about and encounter other minds, whether mediated digitally or face to face. We believe our use of media and of devices that mediate a tethering of self to a world of others can initiate among us generative orientations necessary for human (well) being, even across epistemologies. Note: danah boyd does not capitalize her name, and we defer here to her preferences. (shrink)

This document will investigate the events and circumstances that shaped the music and message of Randall Thompson’s The Testament of Freedom. Evidence uncovered in this investigation will provide a more complete historical record regarding the intended message, or rhetorical intent of the work for future conductors, performers, and audiences. The Testament of Freedom was composed in honor of the two-hundredth anniversary of the birth of Thomas Jefferson, the Father of the University of Virginia. It was commissioned by the University of (...) Virginia President’s Bicentennial Celebration Committee in the fall of 1941, just four months before the attack on Pearl Harbor. The work premiered on April 13, 1943, the same day that President Franklin D. Roosevelt dedicated the Jefferson Memorial in Washington D.C. In the intervening time between the initial commission of The Testament of Freedom and its premier, the confluence of world events led Randall Thompson to reshape, not just the original musical parameters of the commission, but the rhetorical intent of the work that ultimately resulted from that commission. This document will prove that knowledge and consideration of Randall Thompson’s rhetorical intent is imperative when assessing its moral value to society and consequently, its performance viability for future generations of conductors, performers, and audiences. The first chapter will explore the genesis of The Testament of Freedom up to its premier on April 13, 1943, the second chapter will consist of a selective sketch of the life Randall Thompson intended to emphasize the experiences in Thompson’s life that informed the rhetorical intent of The Testament of Freedom. The third chapter will examine the musical rhetoric within The Testament of Freedom to ascertain how Thompson crafted the music of the work to illustrate its rhetorical intent. Evidence will be presented within chapter three to show that Randall Thompson chose rhetorically significant models for both the structure and melodic material within the work. Chapter four’s conclusion will summarize these findings and identify the rhetorical intent of The Testament of Freedom. (shrink)

Heraclitus is famous for claiming that “all things are one,” (ἓν πάντα εἶναι). But what does this mean? In this thesis, I offer a novel, ground-theoretic model for unity in Heraclitus: Cosmic unity through priority monism. I will argue that all things are one through their shared metaphysical ground in the cosmos. My approach is novel in that it diverges from the standard translation of “ἓν πάντα εἶναι” as a means of explaining the unity of conceptual entities. The Greek is (...) ambiguous and can be translated as “all things (conceptual entities) are one” or “all things (material entities) are one”. In taking this claim to be related to both conceptual and material entities, I offer an account that takes seriously Heraclitus’s representation of unity between material entities. First, I present what I will call the ‘Problem of Unity’ in Heraclitus. Then, I give an account of historical interpretations that have attempted to solve the problem of unity, and highlight their theoretical limitations. Next, I turn to my proposed solution through an analysis of metaphysical priority throughout Heraclitus’s fragments. In doing so, I show that Heraclitus’s cosmos appears to be the most metaphysically basic entity. Thus, I argue that Heraclitus’s cosmos grounds its proper parts. Lastly, I show that Heraclitus’s cosmology coincides with a contemporary argument for priority monism through the internal relatedness of all the parts of the cosmos (Schaffer, 2010a; Schaffer, 2010b). I conclude that the claim “all things are one” means that the proper parts of the cosmos share a metaphysical ground: the cosmos itself. (shrink)

In this dissertation, I address two questions about auditory and musical experience: (1) How can music (a set of organized sounds) be heard as expressive of emotions such as sadness or happiness? (2) How are sounds (not limited to musical sounds) and their sources related to each other? Regarding the first question, my focus is on the experience of musical expression: what it is like to experience music as cheerful or anxious, for example. I argue that our so experiencing music (...) is based on experiencing a feeling while attending to the relevant qualities of an expressive piece or passage of music. I suggest that to hear the flow and continuity of music, we feel an inner movement, and this feeling sometimes leads us to attribute emotions to music. This is a version of a so-called arousal theory of musical expression, but a merit of my proposal compared with previously defended arousal and cognitive views is that it can explain better how attending to musical properties results in hearing music as expressive. The second question of the dissertation relates to the problem of how when we hear sounds, we hear them as being of things and events in our surroundings (we can hear, for example, the sound of a metal bar being struck, a wooden door being knocked, a violin being bowed, and so on). How should we explain this relation between a sound and the thing it is a sound of? I argue that a sound is a property of an object and the event it participates in to make that sound. In other words, a sound is a complex property instantiated by an object and the relevant (sonic) event. For example, when I hear the sound of a violin being bowed, I hear properties of the instrument and properties of the bowing of the instrument’s strings in that sound. An advantage my theory has, particularly over the event and property theories of sound in the literature, is that it can explain more convincingly how sounds give us perceptual access to the things and events they are sounds of. I will also sketch a future research direction based on applying my theory of sound to explore the content of musical experience, what we hear by hearing musical sounds in a piece of music. (shrink)

The literary arts represent and provoke experiences of understanding and emotion, and this open access study examines how the practical pursuit of well-being in healthcare reveals purposes at the core of our engagements with and understanding of literature itself. During the past twenty years, much admirable work in the “health humanities” has focused upon what studies of literature contribute to the understandings and the practical work—the “worldly work”—of healthcare. Such a project aims at developing healthcare practitioners who bring greater care (...) to those who come to them ailing or in fear or faced with terrible suffering. Literary Studies and Well-Being turns this inside out by examining the intergenerational caretaking of healthcare in a manner which allows us to comprehend the nature and discipline of literary studies in new ways. (shrink)

Dissertation Summary—Mark Taylor My dissertation explores forgiveness and revenge within a narrative conception of human lives. In Chapter One, I lay out an account of human life stories and argue for its advantages in understanding the value of redemption. In particular, I suggest that the goods we care about in our lives depend on their integration into the way we see ourselves as persons who exist through time. Forgiveness and revenge can recontextualize moments from our past and infuse them with (...) a new meaning. Building on Peter Goldie’s work, I identify unity, purpose, direction, and truth as qualities of life stories toward which forgiveness contributes. I examine some of the psychological literature to understand the role our internal narrative plays in making sense of the world (and the lack of sense when that narrative fails). I conclude by defending against a well-known objection from Galen Strawson against narrative analysis. In Chapter Two I take up a qualified defense of the rationality of revenge. My motivation in doing so is a link in the logic between revenge and forgiveness. If revenge is always straightforwardly irrational, forgiveness is undermined. My strategy to defend revenge is to give a taxonomy characterizing it and then pick out its most justifiable form. I argue that revenge at its best is a form of caring about one’s past, or the past of a loved one. I defend this form of revenge against various objections, especially that it is pointless or involves a rational error about one’s own untouchable value as a person. I argue that the point of revenge is to ‘change the ending’ of the offender and victim’s relationship. I also argue that focus on objective value misses the point: what is threatened is not the victim’s objective value as a person, but the value of a life story worth having. In Chapter Three I lay out my own account of forgiveness. I first provide several characteristic features of forgiveness, and then describe two camps in the literature that disagree about whether forgiveness is primarily a private matter of the heart or a public matter of treatment. I then argue for what I call ‘inaugurated forgiveness’ as a synthesis between these emotional and behavioral views. I suggest that forgiveness begins with a commitment toward the offender, but takes time to come to its emotional culmination. The nature of that commitment is a second-order endorsement of the desires of love over the desires of resentment. I also highlight the importance of hope as the operative forward-looking virtue rather than trust. Forgiveness involves committing oneself to openness to eventual redemption and reconciliation, but does not require the unjustified trust that the offender can be redeemed or reconciled at the moment of forgiveness. In Chapter Four I examine the underlying reasons for forgiving and avenging. I argue that personal reasons have a legitimate role to play in these practices, rather than merely impersonal considerations. Impersonal reasons, such as generic respect for personhood, or desert, play a dominant role in the literature where a major concern is to find a justification of forgiveness within a moral justice conception. Personal reasons are tied to the basic cares and commitments of a life, and these projects are what the life is about as a whole. There is thus an important connection between the narrative direction of a life and its ground projects. Forgiving for personal reasons is a way of giving appropriate weight to the particular life one has. I argue that personal reasons give us a way of understanding how forgiveness is elective and generous. I conclude by using this analysis to briefly outline some strategies for arguing for forgiveness over revenge. For example, I suggest that arguments against revenge need to begin from the victim’s ground projects, such as each person’s commitment to seeing the world truly, or the desire for one’s community to flourish; I suggest that forgiveness usually allows better epistemic access, and better protects one’s intimates. (shrink)

The rhetoric of cultural populism exploits and exacerbates the natural tendency for human communities to define their own identities by contrasting themselves with imagined Others. This heightens the already formidable epistemic challenge of understanding such Others. This chapter proposes an epistemology of intergroup understanding that is relational, recursive, eschatological, and sacrificial. It argues that coming to understand Others across group boundaries requires an ongoing process of listening and a willingness to sacrifice aspects of one’s own identity that prove to be (...) grounded in self-serving misconstruals of the Other. Such listening requires open-mindedness, empathy, epistemic justice, epistemic charity, intellectual humility, and epistemic selflessness, which are therefore crucial to the functioning of a pluralistic society, especially one that is polarized along religious, cultural, or political lines. (shrink)

The three chapters of this dissertation work together and build on each other to make an argument for stronger uniform artists’ moral rights protections in the United States legal system. The current system provides inconsistent protection in a narrow subset of instances and fails to adequately protect moral rights. Many artists lack protections either due to the type of work they produce or due to lack of stature and bargaining power. I argue that by adopting an intimacy-based motivation for protecting (...) moral rights the US legal system could develop laws that sufficiently protect moral rights more broadly and more fairly. This system would guarantee a minimum level of protection for all artists who satisfy the requirements of the intimacy account and provide artists in the United States the same level of protections enjoyed by artists in other countries. This work fills current gaps in the philosophical and legal literature, as well as offering new insights into areas that have been previously discussed. There are two main philosophers currently working in and around the area of artists’ moral rights and copyright law: K.E. Gover and Darren Hudson Hick. Gover focuses on moral rights while not suggesting how these rights should be legally protected and Hick discusses legal protections without discussing moral rights. My work engages with both and provides a bridge, both discussing moral rights and legal application. In Chapter One, I offer a novel justification for the protection of artists’ moral rights based explicitly in the intimate relationship that connects artists to their work. The intimacy account of artists’ moral right rights builds from two more general intimacy accounts. Charles Fried’s intimacy account justifies protection for acts of sharing information which was previously private and which a person has no duty to share. Julie Inness’s intimacy account justifies protection through appeal to the emotional context that accompanies the relationship between an agent and the act/item/information. This emotional context involves having a loving, caring, or valuing relationship. The intimacy account of artists’ moral rights draws from both to create a justification for protecting moral rights based on the idea that artist reveal information and ideas that could have been kept private and do so with the proper accompanying emotional context. In Chapter Two, I identify the type and scope of artists’ moral rights protected by the intimacy account. I apply the intimacy account developed in Chapter One to the traditional rights covered under the umbrella of artists’ moral rights: the right of disclosure, the right of attribution, the right of withdrawal, and the right of integrity. I provide examples and arguments to demonstrate the connections between intimacy and all four traditional moral rights. The Chapter concludes with an extended case study of destruction of graffiti artworks at the well-known site 5 Pointz and a brief discussion of a case involving the posthumous retitling of a work by artist Emily Carr. In Chapter Three, I explore the current state of moral rights protections in the US legal context, offer a critique of the current state of these rights, and offer an initial proposal for what I believe is an improved approach to protecting artists’ moral rights. The chapter serves as an initial scholarly response to 2019 Copyright Office Report on the state of moral rights protections. The chapter moves through the current patchwork of protections for moral rights. In doing so, I identify some central themes: for instance, the fact that laws tend to extend to moral rights protections unintentionally and as a result fail to offer protection when tensions occur between moral rights and the stated intent of the law. I conclude by presenting a guide towards stronger moral rights protections. The explicit adoption of a federal statute aimed at protecting artists’ moral rights, with acknowledgement of the intimacy-based justifications for these protections, could guide courts towards more accurately enforcing the protection of rights. (shrink)

The following paper maintains that a mixed methods approach produces explanations more likely to reveal causation while maintaining generalizability. In this paper, I attempt to illustrate that both methodologies and the explanations produced by each are essential to sociology. The quantitative methods employed by holists tend to produce generalizable explanations. The qualitative methods employed by individualists tend to produce explanations that reveal causation. Methodological holists are correct that explanations need to be generalizable, but the need for generalizability does not render (...) causality irrelevant. Methodological individualists are correct that explanations need to reveal causality, but the need to reveal causality does not render generalizability irrelevant. Holism and individualism are not mutually exclusive. On the contrary, sociological explanations can benefit from the quantitative and qualitative methods employed by each methodological approach. (shrink)

In my dissertation I develop a series of guidelines for responsibly and respectfully navigating varying facets of aesthetic activity involving fat communities. I argue that fat people's engagement with the aesthetic can be used to foster community, resist anti-fat bias, and move towards fat justice. Moreover, I argue that considering representations and treatment of fat people in the production of art must be done carefully in order to avoid perpetuating negative stereotypes and anti-fat bias. My project aims to improve the (...) visibility of fat people, ensuring that fat communities can determine how and when they are seen in ways that affirm their identities and experiences. My project is broken down into four chapters, each of which tackles a different dimension of aesthetic engagement and activity. In the first, I develop a framework called "responsible aesthetic agency" for creators to use when depicting fat people in their work. I intend responsible aesthetic agency to be a way for creators to meet their bare minimum ethical obligations to fat people, and as such this framework is a precursor to Jeremy Fried's aesthetic allyship. I use this framework to argue that artists must attend to the narrative webs in which a work exists when designing their new work's narrative, and that fat people must be active participants in this design and in the realization of said narratives. My second chapter addresses how individuals can use aesthetic agency to advocate for themselves and their communities. I argue that beauty labor can be used to help dismantle anti-fat bias. Using Kathleen LeBesco's framework of agency and identity, coupled with Jeannine Gailey's assessment of the unique perception of fatness as simultaneously hypervisible and hyperinvisible, I argue that participants in the "Fuck Flattering!" movement shape their identities and advocate for fat communities by forcing society to acknowledge their visibility and worth. In my third chapter, I consider representations of fatness in popular media, arguing that we can best achieve fat visibility through centering imperfect representations of fatness. I use Anne Eaton's "Taste in Bodies and Fat Oppression" as a starting point. In this paper, Eaton argues that distaste for fat bodies has an affective element of disgust that we must address to mitigate anti-fatness. Eaton argues that we must habitually engage with vivid and engaging representations that encourage us to see fat bodies as likable and attractive. I argue that while this approach has worthwhile aims, it risks leaving behind those fat bodies which we cannot bring ourselves to see as likeable or attractive. To better combat our distaste for fat bodies, I argue that we must show fat people as complexly as we show thin characters onscreen, highlighting the pluralities of ways to exist as a fat person. Lastly, in my fourth chapter I discuss how to appropriately engage with marginalized communities as a member of a dominant group or identity. I examine the co-optation of the body positivity movement, outline the ethical harms that result from said co-optation, and discuss potential avenues for moving forward with the movement given its co-optation. I argue that in order to fully address the myriad levels of goals of the original body positivity movement, none of these three alternatives is sufficient, as each misses a crucial element of the original body positivity movement or asks participants to have too narrow of an attitude towards their own body. Given the shortcomings of these movements, I argue we should move forward from the body positivity movement’s co-optation by employing a modified framework of Aubrey Gordon’s concept of fat justice, one which also makes room to recognize the importance of fat people being able to experiment with beauty and see themselves as beautiful. (shrink)

In the challenges of the Anthropocene, peace education has yet to fully address and analyze the linked violences of gender and the earth. This thesis will explore those shortcomings, as well as make an ecofeminist ontological offering that extends peace education to address these issues. An ecofeminist offering includes a critique of capitalist patriarchy and colonial structures that subjugate women and the earth along various intersections, linking sociological and ecological destruction; posits an interconnected world of humans and non-humans; and presses (...) toward caring ways of being that focus on dismantling structural violences for the sake of communal flourishing that includes humans and non-humans. Using a post-oppositional framework this thesis will extend peace education using ecofeminist theory and specifically address educational sites and narratives within Hickory County, Missouri using this pedagogical practice. (shrink)

Critical approaches to John Donne’s poetry share a general perspective that alleges a dichotomy between the representation of love in his romantic and devotional works. Starting from a position that acknowledges the metaphysical composition of human beings as constituted by equally important body and soul as central to the ontology that informs Donne’s work, I posit that the connection between body and soul is fundamental to Donne’s vision of love—a philosophy of love that can be traced across the corpus of (...) his work. For Donne, fully realized love involves the engagement of both body and soul along with reciprocation. Tracing this pattern through close analysis of Donne’s poetic techniques including his metaphysical conceits, Renaissance cosmography, reversals, and imagery in poems ranging from samples from the Songs and Sonnets, the Elegies, and the Holy Sonnets, I endeavor to build a comprehensive picture of a philosophy of love that engages the whole person. In this era when modern critical concepts of identity increasingly dictate scholarly approaches to love, Donne’s fundamental perspective grounded in the metaphysics of body and soul is rarely a topic of serious exploration, yet serious attention to the interplay of body, soul, and love in Donne is imperative to an informed understanding of his work. (shrink)

US stock markets have created the greatest wealth in human history. This wealth, however, has not been shared or distributed equally. I seek to understand the way in which income disparities work to undermine mechanisms within the market itself. This Thesis addresses a proposed means for making wealth creation more equitable - so-called ‘democratization’ of the stock markets. I argue that one iteration of the approach, exemplified by the retail trading firm Robinhood, does not fulfill this equity ideal. Robinhood makes (...) it cheaper and easier for ‘regular folks’ to get into finance. By way of both its business model and app design and user interface, it has detrimental effects on equity in financial markets. Financial markets can be a force for good, but only as long as they operate to meet their own appropriate goals of efficiently and productively allocating capital resources. Robinhood-style trading, however, creates an environment more similar to a casino than an auction, potentially harming Robinhood traders and distracting finance professionals with the lure of easy new money. Wealth generation in this context comes apart from the allocative purpose of the market. This concern can be mitigated with intelligently designed adjustments to the system that align profitability with ethicality. Such behavioral and structural changes can originate from market participants, technology providers who create the platforms used by participants, or market regulators. (shrink)

Since Plato, epistemologists have tried to explain why knowledge is more valuable than mere true belief. Traditionally, they have tried to answer this by defining knowledge as true belief plus some additional properties and then tried to explain why these properties are valuable. This dissertation flips this approach on its head. Rather than attempt to explain the value of knowledge in terms of the components that make belief into knowledge, I argue that value itself is what transforms belief into knowledge. (...) It is the sole transformative component of belief. Not only does this approach solve the value problem out of hand, but it can also assist in solving the Gettier problem and can unify otherwise competing theories of knowledge. (shrink)

Chapter One An Argument Concerning the Epistemic Status of Religious Experience I endeavor to show that the skeptic, even on her own terms, will never succeed in ruling out all beliefs based on religious experience by claiming they are unjustified. There is a sort of religious belief based on religious experience that, to my knowledge, skeptical thinkers have not yet considered. The expression of this sort of religious belief bears certain resemblances to natural expressions and avowals of self-knowledge as understood (...) in Dorit Bar-On’s neo-expressivist account of self-knowledge. I argue that some expressions of religious beliefs formed from religious perceptions are similar enough to self-expressions of inner states to require similar epistemic treatment. First-person ascriptions of internal states to play a very significant and relatively uncontroversial epistemic role. If we are to discount religious experience when expressed this way, we must find an appropriate reason. But, on my account, there is no such reason. Therefore, we must endorse the epistemic significance of religious experience in avowals or pay the costly price of abandoning the role avowals play in our mainstream accounts of self-knowledge. Chapter Two Religious Experience and Commonsense Epistemology It is uncontroversial that William Alston’s doxastic practices approach to epistemology is a suitable home for religious experience. Alvin Plantinga’s reformed epistemology is also compatible with religious experience. What has not been shown, however, is whether any other epistemic frameworks are compatible with religious experience. At least one is promising in this regard: commonsense epistemology. In this paper I argue that advocates for the epistemic significance of religious experience will find commonsense epistemology just as hospitable a framework for their concerns as Alston’s doxastic practices or Plantinga’s reformed epistemology. I consider six major principles of commonsense epistemology and argue they establish a suitable approach for those who wish to take the epistemic weight of religious experience seriously. The upshot for advocates of religious experience is that commonsense epistemology offers a simpler route for securing the epistemic status of beliefs based on religious experience. I argue that commonsense epistemology offers the advantage of inheriting minimal theoretical baggage in contrast to the aforementioned religious epistemologies, and it does this while also avoiding the appearance of giving religious subject matter any sort of epistemological special treatment. Chapter Three Putting God in a Box Many theists accept Aquinas’s categories of special and general revelation yet are reluctant to allow religious experience a place in either category. I argue that genuine religious experience, when it obtains, should be considered divine revelation. I present this argument within the framework familiar to those for whom I intend my argument to apply: an evangelical or conservative protestant framework. Against many theists who are skeptical of religious experience, the aforementioned way of thinking about divine revelation must be expanded to include religious experience if we are to preserve a traditional understanding of revelation, according to which divine revelation is generally understood as acts of divine agency disclosing something to a human being. Further, I argue that holding the New Testament Gospels as revelation entails regarding some religious experiences as divine revelation too, as the Gospels are generally accepted by CP&E to be a historical record of religious events. Despite the claims of some critics of religious experience, this position does not obligate Christians to believe that religious experiences are infallible; surely, they can go wrong. I show that while we must regard genuine religious experience as constituting divine revelation if we antecedently accept the Gospels as divine revelation, we can do so while still acknowledging the fallibility of religious experience. Ruling out revelation through religious experience also rules out Yahweh speaking to Moses through the burning bush, Saul on the Damascus road, and a great deal more. Devotion to the text may be admirable, but the authority of the text cannot outgrow the authority of its source. Divine revelation through religious experience is the bedrock of the text. While the inclination may be understandable, surely CP&E cannot disavow the latter to protect the former. Like it or not, we are very poorly placed to judge when divinity is done speaking. (shrink)

Decision theory aims at explaining and predicting rational choice behavior. But ample empirical evidence suggests that descriptively, people’s actual choices do not conform to its predictions in various ways. Some of the counter-evidence, such as anomaly cases proposed by Amartya Sen, challenges even the normative adequacy of decision theory. My dissertation defends it as a normative theory while also offering a novel explanation of why it fails descriptively. Contrary to the Sen-style critique, I argue that decision theory is unimpeachable as (...) a norm or logic of choice. Human decisions do not range over the kinds of objects that philosophers and economists normally assume that they range over. Instead, they range over much finer grained outcomes, what I call “holistic outcomes.” A holistic outcome reflects everything that affects a decision, including the full range of one’s values and the particularities of a choice context. Appreciating that decisions are made over holistic possibilities has important consequences for how we understand decision theory both as a normative and descriptive theory. My dissertation aims at establishing that objects of preference are fine-grained and that human decisions range over holistic outcomes, and then tracing out the consequences of this insight. (shrink)

I argue that an adequate theory of rightness should meet two distinct conditions: a “Consequences Condition” according to which the rightness or wrongness of some, but not all acts should be determined conclusively by the act’s outcomes on welfare, and a “Character Condition” according to which the rightness or wrongness of some, but not all acts should be influenced partially by aspects of the moral character of the person who committed the act. The combination of these two conditions is interesting (...) because many major normative theories capture one, but not both well. In the course of making the case for the Consequences and Character Conditions, I develop and argue for a novel version of metaethical Humean Constructivism that I call “perspectival naturalism,” which I then apply in support of the Consequences and Character Conditions. (shrink)

Realism about mental disorders is a perennial area of dispute, but the controversy burns especially intensely for Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder. In this dissertation, I clarify what is at issue in these debates, surveying how realists have typically argued for mental disorder realism: the definitional debate about health and illness. I argue that the realist need not be committed to the terms of the definitional debate and recommend that a better approach is to show that mental disorders are natural kinds. (...) While there are many accounts of kind-hood on offer, I adopt Richard Boyd’s homeostatic property cluster theory of kinds, which I interpret through the philosophy of neuroscience literature on mechanisms. In sum, I conclude that if ADHD is a natural kind – and thus real – then individuals diagnosed with the disorder should be sufficiently similar with respect to an underlying cognitive neurobiological mechanism. To determine whether ADHD individuals are similar in this way, I consider the question through Russell Barkley’s Executive Function Model of ADHD. Relying primarily on the cognitive neurobiological research, I argue that there is now reasonable evidence to conclude that the DSM classification of ADHD corresponds not to a single natural kind, but several. Thus, ADHD is thus real. (shrink)

A core message of J.R.R. Tolkien's canon concerning the human and non-human global community appears in The Lord of the Rings when Gandalf addresses the Captains of the West, as they prepare their plans to march on the Black Gate of Sauron the ecosadist. Within this quotation, Gandalf urges the Captains to, whenever possible, weed what, whom, when, and where they can. Throughout the various Ages of Middle-earth, Tolkien exhorts his characters to weed and remove "the evil" within their bodies, (...) their minds, and their spirits, as well as the world around them. Tolkien's Middle-earth Legendarium highlights how selfishness, more than any other negative trait, can lead individuals and people groups to adopt and increasingly exhibit ecosadistic beliefs and attitudes, which, in turn, causes these morally compromised individuals and groups to commit acts of ecocide. Negative traits like ignorance, callousness, and laziness often reinforce the evil of selfishness in Tolkien's Middle-earth tales, and therefore, often contribute to the destruction of the physical environment as well. These intellectual, moral, ethical, and spiritual failings, therefore, cause considerable damage to the wilderness, rural, and urban environments of Middle-earth due to insufficient political, cultural, and ideological weeding. Thus, Tolkien's Middle-earth fantasies explore what comprises beneficial work, while offering messages of cautious hope for the future. Tolkien's texts explain that quality environmental guardianship must consider not only the well-being of the individual but also the well-being of small groups, local communities, nations, groups of nations, and the whole world. Tolkien builds from Judeo-Christian practices, from previous historical eras, and from the ideas of his episteme to create his fantastic visions and the environmental ideologies within his Middle-earth texts. Tolkien's works, moreover, serve as partial precursors to a vast array of contemporary ecophilosophies, for these ecophilosophies condemn selfishness, in general, and callousness, in particular. Both Tolkien's writings and the works of contemporary ecocritics, on the other hand, often argue that humans must strive to better understand and satisfy the needs of the marginalized, in general, and non-human nature, in particular, to an even greater degree. (shrink)

There are basically three things wrong with the UNP TIF: 1) It has failed to deliver on the high-end, regional-draw retail which it promised. 2) It diverts tax income from higher priority uses. 3) Expenditures in the TIF create a competitive disadvantage for non-TIF areas of Norman. The proposed new project plan for the UNP TIF only partly addresses the tax diversion issue; it exacerbates the other problems. All of this has distributive justice implication.

The contemporary problem of disagreement has two prominent solutions. The Conciliationists think that after discovering a case of disagreement one should be less certain of one’s original position. Those who favor Conciliatory views tend to think that disagreement is epistemically significant because it causes problems for one’s rationality. The Steadfasters, on the other hand, think that one should maintain one’s belief in the face of a disagreement; thus, disagreement appears a less epistemically significant problem to them. But neither of these (...) solutions address the actual problem of disagreements: that the very same faculties which cause me to trust myself provide you a differing opinion. Therefore, we need a solution for disagreement that responds to the issues it presents to one’s self-trust rather than secondary factors, like the likelihood of peerhood or the truth of the Uniqueness Thesis. Such an account ought to be regulative in nature. That is, it should offer insight to epistemic agents. The best of the regulative accounts can be found in virtue epistemology, because its practical nature is grounded in a holistic appraisal of epistemic agents. In cases of disagreement, to be epistemically virtuous, an agent needs to balance her intellectual fortitude with her intellectual humility and open-mindedness. But in order to balance these virtues when they appear to be in conflict, we need another resource that is able to govern them. For this purpose, I introduce intellectual phronesis. Like its moral counterpart, intellectual phronesis can help one to discern the particularity of situations in order to determine the appropriate response. Accordingly, intellectual phronesis is the ideal tool to adjudicate which intellectual virtue is appropriate for a particular disagreement. (shrink)

Night Song for tenor and orchestra is a setting of the poem “Night Song” from Thus Spoke Zarathustra by Friedrich Nietzsche, translated into English by R.J. Hollingdale. The piece is 24 minutes in length, and is scored for lyric tenor and orchestra, with instrumentation as follows: 3-3-3-3; 4-3-2-1; Timp., 3Perc., Pno., Cel., Harp, Str. In Nietzsche's text, the speaker is the philosopher-prophet Zarathustra, who serves as Nietzsche's mouthpiece for the doctrines of the Übermensch and the Will to Power. Driven by (...) these ideas and by the terrible knowledge of the Eternal Recurrence, Zarathustra finds himself isolated and starved for human connection. "The Night Song" begins as a florid lament expressing sorrow in solitude and longing for true companionship but devolves into madness as the speaker’s thoughts turn inward on themselves, expressing the dark desires stemming from his isolation. In correspondence with the poem, two musical paradigms struggle for dominance throughout the piece; the first is melody-driven, lush, and triadic while the second is rhythm-driven, cold, and dissonant. The changing role of the tenor evokes this division. During the opening lament, the vocal melodies drive the harmonic and dramatic progression of the piece. When the text becomes more introspective, so does the vocal line: its range shrinks and its melodies fragment while winds and percussion take over the primary thematic material. This is meant to illustrate the illogical and destructive nature of the unbidden chatter produced by the mind lacking an outside object to focus its attention. The contrast between these musical paradigms explores the psychological dynamics of isolation implicit in the text and the way in which they relate to the intense but distant relationship of artist to audience. (shrink)

In this dissertation, I examine historical and contemporary versions of the ontological argument for God’s existence and objections to it, focusing on versions of the argument that contain Linkage Premises. I argue that the most plausible kind of objection to these and other ontological arguments is a version of the parody-style counterargument found in contemporary literature. If this counterargument succeeds, it results in a reductio ad absurdum of the ontological argument. I then examine the relationship between being and goodness found (...) in certain medieval philosophers such as Aquinas, Augustine, and Boethius. I argue that this view is coherent and plausible. Then, I argue that for versions of the ontological argument that contain a Linkage Premise to succeed, both against my counterargument and on their own terms, the proponent must presuppose the Convertibility Thesis of Being and Goodness. Finally, I argue that greater attention ought to be paid to this medieval view, not only for its positive results related to the ontological argument, but also because of its relevance in other ethical, metaethical, and metaphysical matters. (shrink)

Neo-Aristotelian ethical naturalism claims ethical goodness is a kind of human natural goodness, where natural goodness is a function of human nature. Call this the core thesis. The normativity objection claims the core thesis fails because ethical goodness is normative and natural goodness is not. In this study I aim to cast new light on this objection and propose a new strategy of response. My argument divides into two main moves. In the first, I side with critics in arguing that (...) Aristotelian naturalism has a serious problem that concerns the normativity of human nature, although standard formulations of the normativity objection do not quite capture it. The problem is that there is an explanatory gap in Aristotelian naturalism’s account of ethical goodness. I argue that although facts about human nature and natural goodness are irreducibly normative in the evaluative sense, they are not necessarily normative in the practical sense. Hence, Aristotelians need to explain what makes such facts practically normative. They have not successfully done this. This explanatory gap threatens the viability of Aristotelian naturalism, for it leaves a central feature of ethical experience—viz. the practical normativity of ethical facts—unexplained. I call this the normativity problem. In the second main move of my argument I propose a two-part solution to the normativity problem. The first part consists in a new metanormative account of the source of normativity I call Aristotelian constructivism. It yields an objectivist, species-relative and naturalistic account of practical normativity. The second part of the solution is an account of practical reason that connects human final ends with human nature. Aristotelian constructivism explains the practical normativity of those final ends, and thus of facts about human nature, without reference to the evaluative status of those facts. Aristotelian constructivism thereby enables Aristotelian naturalists to retain their core thesis. (shrink)

Although there have been various issues involving shame in the educational scene, little research in the field of philosophy of education has seriously investigated this topic. In my dissertation, a comparative philosophical study is conducted in an attempt to develop a better understanding of shame in moral education. This study explores when shame is morally appropriate and how shame is relevant to moral education, either positively or negatively, through historical and multidisciplinary reviews on the concept of shame and cross-cultural analysis (...) of shame-related matters within the context of moral education between South Korea and the United States. In the process of finding sources discussing shame and related issues, a variety of scholarly works in the humanities and social sciences, from classical to contemporary, are surveyed in early chapters of this dissertation. Accordingly, diversified concepts of shame and its complex nature concerning moral education are identified. The later chapters illustrate how shame is associated with education practices, pedagogical approaches, and curriculum by providing selected examples, not only observed by other researchers but also obtained from my own case studies—utilizing content analysis of Korean textbooks and semi-structured interviews with education practitioners in an urban area in central Oklahoma. As a result, this study shows that the moral value of shame is explicitly taught in the Korean education system and negative shame-related phenomena such as shaming are tightly guarded against in the American education setting. This leads to two different consequences: the misuse of shame is underestimated in South Korea, while the moral potential of shame is undervalued in the United States. Ultimately, the study prescribes the re-contextualization of shame in company with the promotion of intercultural awareness, which are both urgently needed for a well-balanced, high quality moral education in today’s multicultural and globalized age. Keywords: sense of shame, shame in moral education, moral pedagogy. (shrink)

Criticisms of design education suggest that educational practices have failed to produce competent designers and, concurrently, failed to allow for participation in culture. These criticisms manifest themselves in questions of design methodology and in issues of race, class, and gender equity in both educational and professional practices; however, they have not engaged design education from the standpoint of educational philosophy. This dissertation begins a philosophical inquiry of those criticisms of design education by critically constructing a history and philosophy of design (...) and design education. This construction suggests that design is, at a very basic level, analogous to the processes and practices associated with making. Resultantly, this work explores three ways of making—artistry, workmanship, and craftsmanship —whose beliefs and practices are beneficial in understanding how educators might think about and teach design. This exploration of ways of making engages the work of educational philosophers as a means of coming to terms with criticisms of design education. Building from Jane Roland Martin’s project of cultural bookkeeping, this dissertation theorizes a taking account of ways of making that can influence how we understand design. Taking account allows for the identification of assets and liabilities that impact design education and, once identified, can be fostered or eliminated in educational practice. Taking account requires a methodological strategy that can identify those assets and liabilities associated with education in design. As practices in education both shape and are shaped by culture, this work engages critical theories that have been applied to other cultural practices. This dissertation has adapted, associated, and applied approaches by feminist scholars. It has engaged the writings of African-American educators and critical race theory when exploring the educational practices that characterize African-American education in the South. The perceived liabilities of vocational education emerge from an exploration of the works of educational theorists. In re-conceptualizing Vitruvius’ de Architectura as a treatise concerning the educational value of craftsmanship, this dissertation theorizes that his call for utility, durability, and beauty is a statement of the necessity of the designer—the architectus—to make judgements. This ability to make judgements—judgements that require the knowledge of epistêmê and the “know-how” of technê —is the most essential skill of the designer if she is to attain the height of her profession; if she is to produce useful physical artifacts that assist in mediating human relationships with and in the world. Further, making judgements can be applied to other educational practices that require creative and critical outcomes —it can be applied to practices in both design and general education. The ability to make judgments and the ability to recognize and accept that knowledge is not limited to the epistemic is a result of an education in craftsmanship. The educational value of craftsmanship is an educational theory that should provoke conversations among a variety of educational agents and, resultantly, lead to new areas of exploration in design education and in more general educational practices. (shrink)

This is the quarterly electronic publication of the Self, Motivation & Virtue Project. It features a lead article, autobiographical sketches of SMV Project research team members, publication announcements, and updates about the SMV Project leadership team. The SMV Project is made possible by a generous grant from the Templeton Religion Trust and by support from The University of Oklahoma.

The story of Galileo’s trial in 1633 intertwines two crucial earlier episodes: 1. Galileo’s encounter with the Inquisition in 1616; and 2. Publication of Galileo’s Dialogue on the Two Chief Systems of the World in 1632. Learn more about it in this learning leaflet.

Chapter One Divine Predication, Direct Reference, and the Attributes of Classical Theism The Church’s affirmation of statements predicating certain positive attributes to God is central to Christian doctrine. However, important biblical and doctrinal predications include ascriptions of emotion, mental states and even movement to God. It is contested whether divine predications should understood metaphorically, analogically, or univocally. The situation is further complicated when one takes into account divine attributes such as impassibility, immutability, and aseity. If classical theists are right in (...) attributing aseity and impassibility to God, it is difficult to see how predications like “God is loving” or “God is angry” should be understood. In this paper I show that contemporary philosophy of language is a surprisingly good bedfellow for religious language. I argue that language, understood in light of contemporary work on public meaning and direct reference, enables us to make meaningful predications of God while not undermining our commitments to some of the most difficult theological ascriptions. This view of divine predication in light of public meaning and reference turns out to be theory of univocal predication, one I call predication by attributive univocity. vi Chapter Two Hectoring Hector: A Thoroughgoing Critique of Hectorian Semantics Divine predication has long proved a problem for theologians and philosophers of religion. Religious speech acts are difficult to explain, as many doctrinal propositions seem to run aground on the metaphysical implications of divine reference and predication. Determining how words refer and describe God is difficult when one considers the attributes that God orted to have: transcendence, simplicity, and holiness, among others. Theology just is the practice of explaining the nature of God in terms humans can understand, and yet God’s nature seems to imply that human language will forever be inadequate to the task of divine description. Attempts to explain theological language have made use of metaphorical, analogical, or univocal predications, and more recently theologians and philosophers have resorted to explaining how theology might be worthwhile even when one accepts that humans cannot, in principle, accurately speak of the divine. Kevin Hector’s recent project, Theology without Metaphysics, is an attempt to restore theological speech acts’ status as meaningful and intelligible. This work has been well-received by theologians and philosophers alike, but it is not without its critics. In this paper, I defend Kevin Hector's Theology without Metaphysics against Sameer Yadav's criticisms. However, I ultimately argue that Hector's version of semantic externalism fails; I also argue that Hector’s rejection of “essentialist-correspondentist” metaphysics is really not the source of the problems with which he is concerned. vii Chapter Three Metaphor and the Mind of God in Nevi’im In The Philosophy of Hebrew Scripture, Yoram Hazony contrasts the uses of metaphor in Nevi’im and the New Testament. According to Hazony, metaphor is employed by Jesus to obscure teachings, but the prophets of the Hebrew Scriptures use metaphor to make teachings intelligible. However, this understanding of metaphor is too simplistic to capture the scope of metaphorical statements made by the Hebrew prophets. In this paper, I suggest that an important set of philosophical arguments are advanced by the prophets in ways not captured by current interpretive methodologies. The paper is divided into two parts. In the first half, I argue against Hazony’s assessment of Nevi’im. In the second, I forward my position on the philosophical dimensions of Nevi’im: that prophetic writings reveal important moral facts about God’s nature and the ways in which we should respond to him in both action and emotion. Appealing to the works of Dru Johnson, Eleonore Stump and Linda Zagzebski, I show that the writings of the Hebrew prophets may in fact advance certain arguments about the emotions and motivations of God. Through the collected writings of Nevi’im, God functions as an exemplar for those receiving the words of the prophets. viii Chapter Four Transitive Speech Acts and Melting Away Wax-Nose Anxieties in Wolterstorff’s Divine Discourse In Divine Discourse, Wolterstorff offers five patterns that interpreters can use to deal with problematic passages of Scripture. Two strategies recommended by Wolterstorff include changing the rhetorico-conceptual structure of a text, and interpreting the passage as what Wolterstorff calls “transitive discourse.” However, anytime the interpreter takes these steps away from the most likely intended meaning given to the text by the human author, he leaves himself open to what Locke called “wax-nose anxieties.” Despite Wolterstorff’s best efforts to limit the threat posed by wax-nose anxieties, Maarten Wisse argues that the two aforementioned strategies leave Wolterstorff especially open to wax-nose concerns. In what follows, I will recount both Wolterstorff’s view and Wisse’s assessment. I will then show that there is no plausible way to save Wolterstorff from Wisse’s criticisms and offer an alternative interpretative strategy for problematic passages that are often considered transitive discourse. I argue that one of Wolterstorff’s existing strategies is sufficient for dealing with problematic passages once proper attention is given to genre, and it does so without invoking transitive discourse readings or changes in rhetorico-conceptual structure. (shrink)

Presidential Address delivered at the one hundred thirteenth Central Division meeting of the American Philosophical Association in Chicago, IL, on March 4, 2016.

Although many attribute this iconic image to the Middle Ages, it first appeared in a 19th century work of meteorology. So it's fitting that this book will open a Galileo's World exhibit at the National Weather Center on Copernicus and Meteorology. Ever wish there were a colorized version available in a suitable resolution which educators and anyone could freely use? This is why Susanna J. Magruder created the colorized version of Flammarion's woodcut shown above, which she is distributing with a (...) CC-by license. Enjoy! You can put it on your website, a t-shirt, a coffee mug, or print out a copy on quality paper for your wall. (shrink)

Quotations from various important Christian interpreters about the relationship between the Bible and Science. Aimed at helping learners differentiate between four key frameworks of relating the Bible and Science.

English classes are still relying on novels taught consistently since the eighties if not earlier. Though our students have changed drastically since that time, our teaching methods and texts have not. And now, only 20% of students are reading what is assigned to them. It’s time to shift our curriculum to something more current and to find the book students will want to read. That solution is young adult literature. Thematically, there is nothing the classics teach that young adult literature (...) cannot match, and students will be more likely to relate to their world using these novels in place of the classics. In this thesis, I suggest young adult novels to read full class in place of the most common novels taught in English classrooms, and provide corresponding activities. Excerpts from the classics would still be used for historical and cultural knowledge, but the bulk of the reading could come from YAL. (shrink)

This is the quarterly electronic publication of the Self, Motivation & Virtue Project. It features a lead article, autobiographical sketches of SMV Project research team members, publication announcements, and updates about the SMV Project leadership team.

In two earlier papers, I began to explore how “ordinary people” acquire virtue. By “ordinary people,” I mean people, not specifically or directly concerned with becoming virtuous, who have goals or aims the pursuit of which requires them to develop virtue. E.g., parents acquire patience and generosity in the course of pursuing their goal to be good parents; those concerned with being peacemakers acquire tact and diplomacy in the pursuit of that goal, and so on. These virtues can be viewed (...) by those who seek them to be of instrumental and not intrinsic value, that is, needed for goal attainment but not necessarily valuable in their own right. Moreover, the virtues so acquired need not be substantially informed by reflective deliberation. Are there pathways by means of which possessors of ordinary virtue can develop Aristotelian virtue, by coming to view the virtues they possess as having intrinsic value; and developing their phronetic capacities such that their virtues become informed by practical wisdom? In this essay, I continue the exploration of ordinary virtue with an eye to revealing possible pathways by which ordinary virtue can indeed take on the characteristics of full Aristotelian virtue. In the spirit of empirical collaboration, I suggest these pathways of virtue development as testable hypotheses. (shrink)

Saint Augustine discussed the relationship between religion and science in the 5th century. Such views became highlight influential throughout the history of science for those interested in explaining the relationship between religion and science. This learning leaflet provides a brief introduction to Augustine's views. Also included is a handout with quotations from Augustine, Martin Luther, John Calvin, and Isaac Newton regarding the relationship between religion and science.

This introduction to Luciano Floridi’s philosophy of information provides a short overview of Floridi’s work and its reception by the library and information studies community, brief definitions of some important PI concepts, and illustrations of Floridi’s three suggested applications of PI to library and information studies. It suggests that LIS may just be as important to PI as PI is to LIS in terms of deepening our mutual understanding of information ontologies, the dynamics of informational domains, and the variety of (...) evolving relationships among information organisms and information objects. (shrink)

The version of this article that is archived here is the author's post-print.

This is an unpublished conference paper for the 3rd Annual Jubilee Centre for Character and Virtues conference at Oriel College, Oxford University, Thursday 8th – Saturday 10th January 2015. These papers are works in progress and should not be cited without author’s prior permission.

This article was originally published in the Self, Motivation & Virtue Project’s e-Newsletter, July 2015.

This is a conference papers for the ‘Can Virtue Be Measured?, held by the Jubilee Centre for Character and Values at Oriel College, Thursday 9th – Saturday 11th January 2014. These papers are works in progress and should not be cited without author’s prior permission.

The provocative title of this conference is, “Can Virtue Be Measured?” My answer to this question is, “Yes, it can,” and I hasten to add, “It should be.” I began thinking about whether and how to measure virtue when Jennifer Cole Wright, a psychologist from the College of Charleston, and I were approached to write a popular book on measuring virtue. Alas, that project didn’t get anywhere, but I hope that our thinking about this issue might yet bear fruit. Central (...) to our thought is a notion suggested to us by one of our prospective editors. That is the idea of virtue intelligence.1 In part I, I sketch arguments for the importance of measuring virtue and sketch how the concept of virtue intelligence might help us to approach this venture. In II, I articulate in more detail what virtue intelligence is, and, in III, situate it within philosophical theories of virtue. In IV, I draw upon the thinking that Jen and I have done to briefly discuss what we believe to be some of the most innovative and exciting methodologies for measuring virtue now being explored. Finally, in V, I go out on a limb and suggest something rather different, inspired by my recent reading on the topic of “big data.”. (shrink)

This paper is an expanded version of a talk given at a Generic Skills Workshop at the University of Wollongong, and was intended for academic staff from any discipline and general staff with an interest in teaching. The issues considered in the paper include the capacity of all to learn, the distinction between learning as understanding and learning as information, the interaction between the communication and content of ideas, the tension between perception and content in communication between persons, and the (...) human functions of a love of learning. In teaching, the creation of a fear-free environment is emphasised, as is the use of analogy as a means of breaking out of one discipline and making connections with another, with mathematics and history being used as a possible example. Some of the issues raised are explored in more depth in the notes at the end of the paper, to which there are references in the main text. About the author. Rodney Nillsen studied literature, mathematics and science at the University of Tasmania. He proceeded to postgraduate study at The Flinders University of South Australia, studying mathematics under Igor Kluvánek and, through him, coming into contact with the European intellectual tradition. He held academic positions at the Royal University of Malta and the University College of Swansea, Wales. Upon returning to Australia, he took up a lecturing position at the University of Wollongong, where he continues to teach and conduct research in pure mathematics. At the University he is a member of Academic Senate and is the Chair of the Human Research Ethics Committee. He received a Doctor of Science degree from the University of Tasmania in 2000. His interests include literature, classical music and the enjoyment of nature. (shrink)

This is the quarterly electronic publication of the Self, Motivation & Virtue Project. It features a lead article, autobiographical sketches of SMV Project research team members, publication announcements, and updates about the SMV Project leadership team.

This is the quarterly electronic publication of the Self, Motivation & Virtue Project. It features a lead article, autobiographical sketches of SMV Project research team members, publication announcements, and updates about the SMV Project leadership team.

This is the quarterly electronic publication of the Self, Motivation & Virtue Project. It features a lead article, autobiographical sketches of SMV Project research team members, publication announcements, and updates about the SMV Project leadership team.

Moral virtue development is grounded in social relationships that foster the socioemotional intelligence underlying moral virtue. Recent research shows a decrease in socioemotional intelligence with implications for moral virtue development. This project is a feasibility study of a theatrical intervention with parent-child dyads to increase socioemotional intelligence and proto-virtuous character by improving parent-child mutual responsiveness. Our theatrical approach combines direct development of mutual responsiveness and practice of moral virtue scripts, providing a powerful and seamless integration of philosophy, theatre art and (...) social science. (shrink)

This presentation was delivered at the Self, Motivation & Virtue Project's 2015 Interdisciplinary Moral Forum, held at Marquette University in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

Character and virtue are changing rapidly in Indonesia, home to the world’s largest Muslim population. The long-praised preference for communal harmony over individual advancement is under great stress. The dominant force behind this is thought to be secular consumerism. Our project aims to assess the impact of commercialization and modern Islamic religious education on the Javanese preference for communal harmony. An extensive survey of Javanese parents and their children and close ethnographic studies of individuals will provide insights into the changing (...) nature of Javanese morality, which is the heart of Indonesian culture. Rather than focus on self-reported values, we will focus on the morality stories that people tell. We hypothesize that the new moral repertoires of consumerism and religiosity are not in competition but are rather working in tandem to undermine the preference for communal harmony in Javanese culture. (shrink)

Contemporary empirical research on virtues has been promising, but limited in depth and value by investigators’ reliance on global self-report questionnaires obtained at a single time-point. These questionnaires require respondents to summarize their trait features in very broad state-ments or focus narrowly on specific behaviors. Properly understood, virtues are partly constitut-ed by appropriate motivations in response to the real-world environment and integrated with the actor’s self—features that are not accessible using the predominant research methods. Our central aim is to deepen (...) virtue research with intensive longitudinal measurement of virtu-ous activity, which includes behavior, motivation, self-congruence, and situational factors. We will assess participants’ real-world activity four times per day over a 14-day period with respect to two pervasive virtues: fairness and kindness. We will then conduct narrative interviews with a subset of participants about virtue in their lives. We will assess motivation in three ways and the integration of the behavior with the self in three ways. These innovative methods will enable us to use cutting-edge psychological methods to investigate sophisticated philosophic questions about whether and how people's capacity for virtuous activity depends on their achieving self-integration - both across time and across personal contexts. (shrink)

Chapter from the book "Cultivating Virtue: Perspectives from Philosophy, Theology, and Psychology." Ed. Nancy E. Snow. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014.

"Jihad" for Muslim is a virtue, it’s learned from generation to generation. But nowadays we can see that this virtue has had different interpretations in society, from peaceful to terrorism. This research will be conducted in Indonesia, the place that is known as one of the biggest Islamic communities in the world. The primary research questions are how jihad as a virtue have been shared as an idea in society, and how motivation to implement this virtue can be very different (...) one to another what are psychosocial factors that give contribution in implement-ing of these virtue. The study will be conducted in three of study with different methods. The first study aims to explain the variety of the virtue of Jihad that can be derived from Islamic lit-erature. The second study is qualitative-comparative, using a social representation approach, this study will explain the personal and social pattern in understanding of different representations of virtue Jihad and the implementation. The result from the second study will be tested in la-boratory with experimental design which aims to test the different reactions of the brain regard-ing the motivation difference of jihad between person's moral obligatory or emotional inclina-tion on some variation differences group of jihad interpretation. Using Electrical Capacitance Volume Tomography we will record how brain will react in specific situation. This re-search will integrate three disciplines: humanities, social science, and natural science all studying the same virtue, Jihad. The research expected outcomes are to explain the variety of the virtue of Jihad that can be de-rived from Islamic literature, and to describe the representation of virtue of Jihad and its im-plementation on individual level and different type of group in Islamic community in Indonesia. (shrink)

To what extent do differences in who we are predict differences in courage? We propose to de-velop a measure of the virtue-relevant self, which is composed of self-conception, social roles, virtue-relevant values, and personality traits. We will then conduct three studies using this meas-ure to determine the extent to which these various components of the virtue-relevant self pre-dict the types of acts people consider courageous as well as the willingness of people to engage in courageous acts themselves. We believe that (...) individual differences in each of these compo-nents – that is, the content of the virtue-relevant self – will correlate with differences in first, how people rate actions that they themselves have undertaken in the past; second, how people rate actions that other people have taken; and third, the willingness of people to take certain kinds of courageous action. If found, these relations will have broader implications for the self and virtues by indicating that traits of the self beyond character traits affect both the conception of virtuous behavior and virtuous behavior itself. (shrink)

Program for the Self, Motivation & Virtue Project's 2015 Interdisciplinary Moral Forum, held on March 12-14, 2015. The Interdisciplinary Moral Forum brought together 57 moral self researchers from around the world and from multiple disciplines. It was held at Marquette University in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Participants included two members from each semi-finalist research team, members of the Core Project Team, and other interested members of the Marquette and Milwaukee academic communities.

This transdisciplinary study will examine how the narration of self, motivation, and eudaimonic virtues like wisdom and compassion develop within a social ecology of family master narratives and social institutions that either foster or constrain the development of such virtues. Drawing from a larger, longitudinal study of character development and life stories in adulthood, we will interview individuals and their families about virtue-relevant events in life, such as conflicts of belief, virtue-focused projects and activities, and self- and family-defining memories. Narratives (...) will be analyzed qualitatively and critically as well as quantitatively and in relation to other measures of eudaimonic and personal development. We expect that specific virtues will serve as motivational themes in personal and family stories and that these narrative themes will predict specific paths of virtuous self-development. We further expect that specific inequalities in family and social-institutional contexts will correspond to specific conflicts in the development of eudaimonic qualities in individuals’ lives. (shrink)

This presentation was delivered at the Self, Motivation & Virtue Project's 2015 Interdisciplinary Moral Forum, held at Marquette University in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

This presentation was delivered at the Self, Motivation & Virtue Project's 2015 Interdisciplinary Moral Forum, held at Marquette University in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

Our research project will investigate the virtue of humility among real world humanitarian exemplars, such as holocaust rescuers and hospice workers. We will use computer technology to analyze interviews with these types of populations to understand the different factors involved in the virtue of humility. Following the work of Aristotle, we believe this virtue is formed as a kind of habit that becomes a natural extension of one’s character. We aim to operationalize and empirically evaluate aspects of the virtue of (...) humility through the computational analysis of implicit semantic processing embedded in the narratives of real world humanitarians. Latent semantic analysis, multi-dimensional scaling, and hierarchical cluster analysis will be used to map self-understanding schemas in these populations and its role in humility while serving others. (shrink)

This presentation was delivered at the Self, Motivation & Virtue Project's 2015 Interdisciplinary Moral Forum, held at Marquette University in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

According to Buddhist philosophies, recognizing the self as impermanent, changing, and interdependent is at the root of virtue. With this realization, desires shift away from inward self-cherishing and toward outward self-transcending. This altruistic outlook underlies virtuous action and flourishing. Our primary research question asks: 1) to what extent do people experience self-transcending and self-cherishing desires in everyday life, and 2) to what extent do these different desires predict behaviors and body physiology that underlie virtue and well-being. As highlighted by the (...) SMV project, one challenge involves measuring both intention and action. To overcome this challenge, we propose a multi­methodological study that will integrate first­person experiences of desires, second­person reports from close others, and third­person laboratory measures of prosocial behavior and body physiology that underlie virtue and flourishing in the context of social relationships. We will use an “experience sampling” method delivered via a smartphone app to capture psychological desires in daily life. In the laboratory, we will examine if desires in daily life are related to prosocial behavior and physiological synchrony during face-to-face social interactions with a romantic partner. Theoretically, we anticipate that integration of Buddhist philosophy into Western psychology research will encourage more emphasis on the deep psychological desires that appear to continually drive behavior. Empirically, we predict that frequent self-transcending desires in daily life will be related to prosocial behavior and physiological synchrony during interactions with romantic partners. Going forward, this project will provide the foundation for future work examining how the moral self can be shaped through contemplative practice in everyday life. (shrink)

This presentation was delivered at the Self, Motivation & Virtue Project's 2015 Interdisciplinary Moral Forum, held at Marquette University in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

This presentation was delivered at the Self, Motivation & Virtue Project's 2015 Interdisciplinary Moral Forum, held at Marquette University in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

Throughout history the regular solids were a point of intrigue by astronomers, mathematicians, artists, and philosophers. The Pythagoreans proved that there are only five regular solids: the cube, triangle, octahedron, dodecahedron, and icosahedron. This OER offers high-quality images from books published in the 16th and 17th centuries which feature the five regular solids.

The value-free ideal for science prohibits noncognitive values from influencing the practice of science. After all, a scientist should not reject an empirical theory on religious grounds. But while motivated by reasonable concerns, VFI overlooks legitimate roles for noncognitive values in science. Contra VFI, Hugh Lacey explains that noncognitive values can promote scientific aims by grounding new methodologies that may lead to novel theories and extend to new domains. Yet, Lacey agrees with one aspect of VFI: noncognitive values should not (...) serve as grounds in the empirical evaluation of theories. This has led some critics to misidentify his view merely as an updated version of VFI. I argue that views of the kind Lacey endorses, which I call Dialectical Empiricism, deserve further investigation. They capture what VFI gets right; but they also show that noncognitive values are essential to good science. Throughout the dissertation I explore variants of DE, demonstrating its potential and flexibility. Furthermore, I defend DE against its critics, especially those who mistake it for a version of VFI. In stark opposition to VFI, DE reveals how the illusion of value-freedom sometimes blinds us to promising alternatives to mainstream scientific approaches. I demonstrate this by applying the framework of DE to contemporary research in agricultural and nutritional science. These case studies show that noncognitive values really do influence scientific practices. And, most importantly, they demonstrate how embracing a value-laden view of science can open our eyes to promising alternative approaches that may have the potential to increase our knowledge of the world and of possibilities for human flourishing. (shrink)

Religion is one of the most influential agents of moral education in both private and public domains, and its educational values and practices vary profoundly from one tradition to another. With that recognition, this empirical-conceptual and “gender-sensitive” qualitative inquiry into the “dark side of Christianity” utilizes narratives from fourteen oral life histories alongside other textual and cultural data to formulate an original pedagogical theory for religious miseducation. I have named this theory Carceral Christianization and have bestowed the identity of Carceralites (...) on its adherents. As an excessively dogmatic and sometimes abusive religious approach to rearing and educating children, CC, however well meaning, metaphorically imprisons adherents’ coming of age and what I call coming of conscience. As such, it qualifies as “cultural miseducation” and poses a complex ethical “educational problem of generations” with regard to religious education. The goal of this study is to help people recognize and understand some of the painful and problematic effects of growing up in CC, not only for individuals but also for communities. Given that Christianity is the predominant religious tradition in the U.S. and is influential in many public spheres, and in light of recent growing worldwide apprehension over religious extremism, the topic represents a central concern for educational inquiry. (shrink)

The past several decades have witnessed a trend of esteeming empiricism to the point of vilifying philosophical knowledge, which has resulted in conceptualizations of religion and spirituality that are increasingly polarized, incomplete, and theologically and philosophically bankrupt. A related effect of discrediting and discarding philosophical knowledge has been the recent emergence of the claim of being spiritual but not religious. The overarching aim of the current study was to evaluate the validity of this claim within the context of the anthropology (...) of Saint Thomas Aquinas, endeavoring to understand religion and spirituality as they operate within the context of the whole person. Using a structured interview with individuals who identified themselves as spiritual but not religious, the primary goal was to demonstrate that this claim does not make existential sense. The secondary goal was to compare those who identified themselves as spiritual but not religious to those who identified themselves as both spiritual and religious in terms of the quantity and type of actions they listed to characterize their spirituality. Data were analyzed using Observation Oriented Modeling. Results provided unequivocal support for viewing religion and spirituality within the context of the teachings of Aquinas. At the end of the interview, 88% of those who identified themselves as spiritual but not religious modified their claim in such a way as to bring it in line with Aquinas' assertion that religion is necessary for an individual to develop spiritually. Those who were both spiritual and religious tended to list more actions that they perform as a result of their spirituality. Moreover, their actions were more likely to fit the criterion for truly being considered a spiritual action. The implications of these results are that the claim of being spiritual but not religious is not consistent with the existential reality of the person in that it disintegrates the individual by asserting that the will operates entirely independent of the intellect. (shrink)

ABSTRACT: This dissertation is a response to the skeptical threats and challenges leveled by disagreement. Any plausible response to skepticism should explain what knowledge is and explain why the skeptic’s assumptions about what’s required for knowledge are false. In this dissertation I assume a virtue theoretic account of knowledge, which is a species of an externalist theory of knowledge. I defend this account of knowledge in the face of two problems I argue any externalist must address. The first problem is (...) whether or not externalists can account for the kind of defeating evidence brought about by disagreement. Put differently: reliabilists need to explain how counterevidence from epistemic superior disagreement fits into a reliabilist scheme given what matters for reliabilists is that a true belief is sourced in a reliable process. The second problem is explaining what is wrong with what I take to be one of the strongest skeptical arguments from disagreement. The scope of this skeptical argument is modest in that one needs to recognize and be aware of an epistemic superior who disagrees with you over the veracity of some proposition. Nevertheless, it’s a skeptical argument that avoids what many think are pre-theoretically irrelevant scenarios such as cases involving malevolent demons, brains in vats, Matrixian pods, etc. The pre-theoretical obviousness that one is not in a vat of chemicals doesn’t generalize to the more modest claim that one needs to rule out an epistemic superior’s belief in theory t, which entails the denial of one’s belief that p. Chapter One explicates how peer disagreement provides arguments for modest versions of skepticism. This chapter appeals to some of the leading proponents of this version of skepticism in order to draw together the common threads their skeptical arguments share. Once I identity the common threads shared by proponents of skepticism from disagreement, I put forth the argument for skepticism from disagreement. Chapters Two and Three argue why the problem of moderate skepticism in Chapter One is a pseudo-problem by arguing why internalism is not the only game in town when it comes to making normative evaluations. Chapter Three continues to explain why the argument for moderate skepticism is a pseudo-problem by arguing how unlikely it is to satisfy the conditions needed for the argument to go through. Chapter Four propounds what I take to be the strongest skeptical argument from disagreement. This chapter shifts the problem of disagreement from internalist’s concerns to externalist’s ones. The result is a skeptical argument that avoids the problems plaguing the original argument presented in Chapter One. Chapter Five provides Greco’s virtue theoretic account of knowledge. This chapter provides the theoretical resources needed to provide a Grecoian response to the challenges leveled against externalists in Chapter Four. Chapter Six explains the role defeaters play in epistemology and what a Grecoian account of defeater looks like. Once an account of defeating evidence is provided, an answer to the question “How can externalism provide an account of defeating evidence that comes from disagreement?” emerges. Chapter Seven provides a response to the new skeptical argument from disagreement laid out in Chapter Four. This chapter appeals to the theoretical resources provided in Chapter Five so as to complete this dissertation’s purpose of providing a Grecoian response to skepticism from disagreement. (shrink)

The purpose of this study was to examine the relation between Teachers' Stated Philosophy about how children learn and should be taught, Teachers' Developmentally Appropriate Literacy Practice, and Children's Print Concepts. Teachers' DALP consists of the classrooms' Physical Environment, Social Environment, and Active Learning Program. Both mediating and moderating models were tested. The sample consisted of 455 preschool children that came from 115 preschool classrooms. Multiple regression analysis was conducted on the variables to determine which model provided the most explanatory (...) power. Teachers' Stated Philosophy did not predict Children's Print Concept development. Therefore, the mediating model could not be tested. When tested, the moderating model was also not significant. However, Teachers' Stated Philosophy was found to predict Teachers' DALP, and Teachers' DALP was found to predict Children's Print Concept development. (shrink)

The metaphor, mosaic, is presented as an aid to organizational leaders by providing an immediate mental image and framework for grasping the complexity of organizational change and diversity. This dissertation describes, explores, and analyzes the machine, organism, and mosaic metaphors of organizations in relation to the environment and diversity, organizational structure, management and leadership theory, and emotion, motivation, power, and relationships. Organizations have evolved from traditional hierarchies and transactional leadership represented by the machine metaphor to matrix structures and participative leadership (...) represented by the organism metaphor, and to flatter structures and transformational leadership represented by the mosaic metaphor. There is however no one best structure, management or leadership theory and style, or organizational metaphor. (shrink)

Scope and Method of Study: The purpose of the study was to modify an existing measure of epistemological beliefs about medical knowledge specific to the layperson and further to investigate the relationship of this epistemological beliefs with other health related constructs, health locus of control and perceived involvement in care. To achieve these purposes, item analysis, confirmatory factor analysis and exploratory factor analysis were conducted to explore the structure of the Modified Domain-Specific Epistemological Beliefs Scale - Lay Medical Knowledge. Psychometric (...) analysis included reliability analysis and evidence in support of content validity was presented. Relationships with other health related constructs were investigated with canonical correlation analysis. (shrink)

Analysis showed convergent and divergent views about Islamic education. Many perceived a conflict between Islamic Secularism and Conservatism in education and were pessimistic about a compromise between the two groups. Almost all of the participants perceived a harmony between science and Islam including astronomy. However, as related to the teaching of Darwin's theory of evolution, philosophy and mythical stories, supporting, opposing, and ambivalent views were expressed.

The claim that virtue requires self-knowledge may seem banal, but it has been challenged by recent claims that certain virtues, such as modesty, require ignorance of self and that self-deceived persons are both happier and nicer. My argument is grounded in a broadly Aristotelian conception of virtue, where full moral virtue includes both the virtues of character, such as temperance, generosity, and courage, and the intellectual virtue of practical wisdom. I argue that self-knowledge is necessary for practical wisdom and practical (...) wisdom is necessary for virtue; hence, self-knowledge is necessary for virtue. However, self-knowledge is not sufficient for virtue, as a person could lack other capacities or insights that would enable her to act virtuously. She may, for example, fully understand her own character, yet be too weak to do the right thing, or she could know that she is a con artist and feel proud of this fact. (shrink)

Afrocentricism stems from a total attempt by African Americans to define themselves based on their own value system and their interpretation of reality in which they find themselves without Eurocentric interference, domination or control. As an educational model, Afrocentricism is suggested as a means to solve the social, cultural educational and economic malaise that is presently afflicting the American community. The validity of the Afrocentric paradigm is supported by archeological, anthropological, historical, and educational data gathered by scholars intent upon providing (...) an educational alternative for African children. Their research challenges traditional Eurocentric educational thought and practice that Afrocentric proponents believe limit, restrict, ignore and or prohibit the inclusion of other people's experience into the educational canon. (shrink)

Quevedo brings together a number of philosophical traditions in the Suenos. One chapter of the thesis examines Quevedo's use of Epicurean dream theory as well as the larger ramifications of the dream setting for the satires. Another chapter analyzes the exact nature of Quevedo's sceptical views and their classical sources with emphasis on the content of El mundo por de dentro. Included is a discussion of the moral philosophy presented in the Suenos, deriving primarily from Stoic sources. In each case, (...) Quevedo reconciles these classical influences with Christian doctrine, leading to a discussion in the thesis as to the exact nature of his Christian beliefs as they are expressed in the Suenos, i.e., whether Quevedo was indeed an existentialist and nihilist as many have labeled him. (shrink)

In light of the organically interconnected relationships of learning mathematics, a theoretical heuristic was developed to exemplify the implications of the findings of the study. Called SEARCH, the heuristic highlighted learning mathematics as a synergistic relationship constituted by an interconnectedness among social, emotional, physical, and cognitive development, each of which requires a balanced consideration in order to pursue the epistemological, ontological, and methodological paradigmatic frameworks embedded in current mathematics reform agendas. SEARCH is an acronym that stands for Social Emancipation, Active (...) Referencing, and Creative Heuristics. SEARCH also metaphorically implies that learning mathematics is a "search" - i.e., what learners do as they endeavor to make mathematical sense. At the same time, a "search" is what teachers do in making sense of the mathematics each student constructs. It is upon such a foundation that the implications for pedagogical change engendered in contemporary mathematics education reform perspectives have been addressed. (shrink)

This inquiry participates in continuing philosophical debates over the appropriate relationship between religion and public education and the conceptual consequences of any such relationship for teachers. Identifying problems inherent in RRPE, it proposes criteria for any attempt to renegotiate RRPE and thus reconceptualize teacher: i.e., affirmation of diversity, social authorization, moral-ethical idealism, non-'realist' ontology, love ethic, and meaningfulness. These criteria ground a critique of three paradigmatic conceptions of teacher--as prophet, as technician, as common sense pragmatist--here found inadequate for an historical (...) moment when conflicts over RRPE threaten school's claimed role in democratizing society. This critique concludes, however, that Cornel West's prophetic pragmatism provides a useful philosophical framework for renegotiating RRPE and reconceptualizing teacher. (shrink)

Data revealed that disjunctions occurred between the teacher's intentions for making the assignments and the students interpretations of the assignments on some level with all three essays. Data analysis also indicated that the written texts which the students produced were shaped by sociocultural influences, personal and educational influences, intertextual influences, and motivational influences.

An analysis of the concept "experience" is conducted, both in ordinary language and in adult education literature, for the purpose of adding clarity to what is meant or intended by the use of the term "experience.".

Chapter I describes diachronic realism and shows why it is a version of what is called 'metaphysical realism'. Consequently, I argue that recent claims that 'metaphysical realism' is incoherent are unfounded. Chapter II argues that certain anti-realist positions involve an insufficient treatment of 'meaning' and 'reference' for theoretical terms. I review much of the current work on theories of reference and show that these incommensurability positions are bankrupt given either of the two most promising theories of reference. Chapter III argues (...) that certain methodological factors are the main considerations in historical cases of theory choice, and can warrant rational belief in a theory if it has achieved a sufficient level of virtues. Chapter IV defends the intuition that a realist interpretation of scientific theories explains their success by expanding the concepts of 'truth' and 'approximate truth'. I introduce the notions of truthlikeness and being on the right track to distinguish theories that were at least partially theoretically correct, from theories that were only successful in that they correctly organized experimental data. I use these notions with my diachronic approach to analyze two important historical examples. (shrink)

Since Kohlberg's concept of moral development differs significantly from Dewey's, this paper recommends that Kohlberg's educational programs be withheld from classrooms or clearly explained to parents who may not adhere to Kohlberg's unique philosophy.

Although the Conference was not an original idea, it was the first occasion in Africa which dealt with educational programs, progress, needs, and problems of middle Africa as a whole. It was recognized as the first effort to locate and examine the problems of African education on a continental basis, to identify those problems, and to devise ways and means of dealing with them.

Oklahoma has a rich and varied history, with roots in many cultures. Although much has been written on the early history of Oklahoma, there has been very little effort to identify and describe the contributions of Black leaders in the field of education. This study was conceived as an effort to document and describe Roscoe Dunjee's contributions to Oklahoma education. He was editor and founder of the Black Dispatch newspaper of Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. Although many aspects of his life are (...) discussed, this study is limited to Dunjee's efforts and impact in the area of education. (shrink)

New technology and techniques in research have enabled the neuroscientist to make some major advances in understanding the nature and operation of the brain. These new findings could have far-reaching effects upon many other areas of life, especially education. This dissertation is an inquiry into some of the neuroscientific research that could have a significant effect upon the philosophy and practice of education in general and the inclusion of the arts in education in particular. It supports the idea of a (...) new area of specialization encompassing both education and neurology. (shrink)